


Circle Around

by Qpenguin98



Series: All the good that won't come out [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Torture, Whump, i did a real big hit on the boy, just you know generally
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 11:06:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15363258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qpenguin98/pseuds/Qpenguin98
Summary: Angus McDonald has been followed for the past ten minutes at least.This presents an issue. In the best case scenario, this person has recognized him and is either too shy to say hello or wants to hire him for a case and is, again, too shy to say hello. Any other scenario is bad. He wonders if they know he’s realized he’s being followed.





	Circle Around

Angus McDonald has been followed for the past ten minutes at least. He’d noticed it at the bookstore he’d stopped in to check on the delivery status of the upcoming Caleb Cleveland book. The person is unassuming, drab clothing on an average looking body. Angus stops inside a few other shops, tinkering around for a few minutes before proceeding outside. The stranger never goes in after him but does pick back up once he’s come outside.

This presents an issue. In the best case scenario, this person has recognized him and is either too shy to say hello or wants to hire him for a case and is, again, too shy to say hello. Any other scenario is bad. He wonders if they know he’s realized he’s being followed.

He would just go back to the school’s campus, tell Lucas not to let whoever’s following into the school without a proper explanation, but the most direct and not out of the way path back to the school is through the woods. It may be a main road, but it is a weekday and it is in the woods.

Angus considers calling a member of his family briefly before trashing that idea. He’s Angus McDonald, world’s greatest detective. If he can’t lose this person then can he really keep that title?

He turns down a crowded street, packed full with vendors and customers. Weaving in between people he quickens his pace, finding taller people to hide behind. Once he’s halfway through the street he ducks down, hiding his head beneath the crowd and sliding back behind one of the vendors. She shoots him a look as he practically crawls behind her booth.

“Hello ma’am,” he says in a hushed whisper. It’s not as though he needs to talk quietly, the horde of people is loud enough to cover his voice. “There’s someone following me, could I hide here for a few minutes?”

Her face softens and she nods. “Of course sweetie. Do you need me to call anyone for you? Go and find someone to help?”

“No ma’am, I’m alright. Just trying to lose them.”

“If you’re sure,” she says, and he nods, sitting down behind her booth. He pops his head up a little to look, see if he can spot the person tailing him. He recognizes the hat, a plain skullcap hiding whatever hair they have. It looks like a presumably human man, face set hard. He looks around the packed street in agitation, and Angus ducks his head before he can see him. He waits there, breath held, and then looks back up. The man is walking away, faster than before, muttering something to himself.

Definitely not looking for a job or a hello then.

He thanks the woman running the booth and waves off her request to help him home. He keeps to that back wall, sliding behind the merchants and keeping himself relatively hidden. Once he makes it out onto the less crowded street he was on, Angus lets out a breath, scrubbing at his face a little.

Time to go back to the campus.

The man should still be looking for him on that busy street, which should give him just enough time to speed through the woods and make it back before he realizes he’s gone.

He walks speedily down the streets, checking around him every so often just to make sure his follower hasn’t caught on. Angus pulls his wand out, fireball ready on his tongue for if he needs it. All that’s left is the forest road, a fairly straight path to Lucas’s school. He’ll check in with Lucas before going back to his room.

Every shadow makes him jumpy, but he stays alert, ears and eyes taking in everything around him. He passes a few people on the road but they don’t pay him much mind. The road is long and halfway through feels very empty.

Until he hears a twig snap in the trees to his left.

The fireball is already out of his wand and barreling towards the man before he can register what’s happening. The man rolls out of the way, narrowly avoiding the flames that hit a tree before sputtering out.

“You’re pretty good,” the man says, raising his hands as he stands. Angus doesn’t lower his wand. “Very smart to try and lose me in that market place.”

“What do you want,” he says, voice level. He grips his wand hard to keep it from shaking. He’s dealt with vengeful people before, but this man is smart. He can’t underestimate him.

“Can’t I just want to talk?” He asks, feigning innocence. “Perhaps I just wanted to sit down at a nice café and have a drink with Angus McDonald, the world’s greatest detective.”

“Then you would have said something at the bookstore. Or any of the other shops you didn’t follow me into. I am not dumb, sir. Please don’t beat around the bush.”

His eyes narrow and Angus sees his hands twitch in the air. “No, I suppose you aren’t.”

Angus is about a half mile away from everywhere. He’s smack in the middle between the school and the town, and there are no people around to scream for help at. He has a wand and a limited amount of spells at his disposal. He’s a thirteen year old boy that doesn’t have much muscle on him, and this stranger is a fully adult human man. There’s a very large disadvantage. Angus has no clue if this person uses magic, how high of a level they could be, or if he just uses brute strength and skill to his advantage.

“You haven’t answered my question,” he says. Niceness isn’t going to get him out of this. “What do you want?”

“Oh, you’ll find out in due time,” he says nonchalantly, and then he rushes him.

Angus tries to scramble backwards and shoot another fireball at the man, but his focus is off and all that comes from his wand is a few pitiful sparks. The man catches him around the stomach and Angus does the only thing he has left at his disposal. He kicks and screams.

The heel of his shoe comes into contact with the person’s shin and he hears pained cursing in his ear. He tries to wriggle out of the man’s grasp, still yelling. A cloth covered hand comes up and over his mouth and nose. Angus doesn’t breathe in, tries to get the cloth away from his mouth, but he holds it there tightly until he’s forced to take a breath. The chemical makes him dizzy and his voice cracks out. He blinks his eyes a few times and finds himself being drug back into the woods. The man’s hands are bruisingly tight around his arms, he notes hazily before being pulled under completely.

He wakes up in a dark room, one light on the ceiling. He takes it in, scrubbing at his head to get the pain of being drugged gone. The walls are stone, a little damp in spots. There’s a chair in the middle of the room and a bucket in the corner. No windows, one door. He stands up, legs wobbly, and tries the door knob. It’s locked. He’s not surprised, but it’s still disappointing.

He takes a second to breathe and then pats himself down. His clothes are still on him, and they don’t seem to have been touched. He’s missing his socks and shoes, which is an interesting thing to take, he thinks. He doesn’t have any of his belongings, only his glasses that are still sitting on his face. None of the bags he had with him when he was kidnapped, no stone, and no wand.

Okay.

He panics a little, hits the wall to see how thick it is, and comes back with almost no reverb. Soundproofed. His breathing hitches and his hands shake. Calm down, Angus. You can figure your way out of this, he tells himself.

He should have called his family.

Him and his stupid pride. Now he’s stuck in a soundproofed room and he has no idea where it is. He closes his eyes and presses his hands to his head. Think. There’s a way out of this. He can get out of this.

He’s been given two objects. A chair and a bucket. The man, or someone, will presumably open the door eventually. If he times it right and hits him hard enough, he might be able to slip out unscathed. If it goes wrong, he’ll only anger his captor. But it’s the only option he’s got right now.

The chair is heavier, so there would be a better chance of knocking him out, but he wouldn’t be able to swing it hard enough, let alone keep it in the air long enough for him to get a decent hit. The bucket is much lighter, but if he swings it right it should do some damage. He picks it up and carries it over to the wall near the door, holding it tightly in his hands and waiting.

What could this man want with him? He doesn’t look familiar, and Angus rarely forgets a face. He hasn’t done many cases recently, so if he’s looking for revenge from one of his bigger busts, it would be from a while ago. He can’t find a good reason for him to have been taken, unless it’s to get at someone else. He supposes he’d be the easiest way to get at any one of his family, not nearly as good a fighter as all of them.

A scraping noise catches his attention again, and he holds the bucket at the ready. A hatch in the door opens up and a tray of food slides in. “Eat up,” comes the voice of the man, and then the hatch slams shut again, locking.

Angus stares at the plate of food he’s been given. That’s… He gulps. Thirty garlic clove chicken, or this man’s rendition of it, sits on the plate in front of him. There’s a sealed water bottle with it. He reaches out and pulls the tray away from the door.

He’s been taken to get at Taako then. For Glamour Springs, even if everyone in the world knows that wasn’t his fault. He doesn’t dare touch the food. He’s positive he’ll be poisoned if he eats it. He does squeeze the water bottle, flipping it around to make sure it hasn’t been tampered with or punctured in any way.

Water is more important than food anyway.

He stays there, bucket at the ready, for a while. He drinks the water bottle slowly, not sure how much more water he’ll be given. If this man plans to kill him then he definitely needs to get out.

He’s not sure how much time passes, but it feels like hours until something happens. He’s half sitting, dozing a little against the wall, when he hears the lock begin to turn. He stands up quickly and quietly, bucket raised and prepared. The door creaks open and the man walks in, turning to find him in the room, and Angus swings.

It hits him, he knows that, but all it does it make him stumble backwards. Angus bolts forward, trying to get out the door before the man catches his bearings, but a hand finds his hair and drags him back, slamming the door after him. He doesn’t cry out, but he does bite his lip at the pain. The man drags him back to the chair despite his struggling. There’s no point in yelling but he does it anyway. A hand slaps him across the face hard enough to daze him, and he can’t really find it in him to struggle against the rope being tied around his wrists as he tries to pull himself back together.

“Gods, you really did choose the hard way,” the man says, laughing lowly. “I even gave you an out with that chicken. Too smart for that, it seems.”

“Wha…” he tries to say, shaking his head to clear it. “What do you want?”

“I think you’ve figured that out by now, Mr. Detective. What do all the signs point to?”

“You want to get back at Taako,” he says, because maybe if he’s agreeable things will go better. His eyes dart around and he sees a toolbox, locked, at the floor of the chair. He closes his eyes and swallows harshly. He hopes to any god listening that it doesn’t get opened. “F-for Glamour Springs?”

He gets an encouraging hum in response, a push to keep going.

“Someone you, someone you cared about was there. And they died. Because his assistant put arsenic in the food.”

“Yes,” the man says behind him, finishing up the rope. “But he is in jail, and Taako is the one who fed it to her.”

His breathing speeds up and he squeezes his hands against the ropes, just to test. They hold. “A-and you want Taako to feel what you feel.”

“Very good,” he sounds genuinely pleased. It’s more than a little terrifying. “They say you’re smart, but you figuring all that out with just the chicken is really good. Don’t worry. I won’t kill you. That was what the food was for. I assumed you’d know, and you did.”

He doesn’t ask what he will do to him, doesn’t want to know. The man comes in front of him, crouches to his level on the balls of his feet. From his pocket he fishes out a stone of farspeech on a very familiar rope. He pulls it over his own head, settling it to his drab shirt.

“You seem like a nice kid, Angus. I really am sorry for all of this.” Angus closes his eyes tight and doesn’t let the scared noise escape him. “Now, I’m going to need you to tell me Taako’s stone frequency.”

He rattles off the numbers with his eyes still tightly closed. He hates the way his voice shakes. The man punches in the numbers and he hears him go back behind him. The sound of the toolbox opening reaches his ears and he tenses.

“Agnes!” Taako’s voice comes from the stone behind him. “What’s up bubeleh? We’re having dinner and you’re not due for a call until Thurday.”

They’re having dinner. Everyone’s there. Oh gods. He can feel himself start hyperventilating, but a hand presses over his mouth, silencing him.

“Hello, Taako.”

Angus opens his eyes and stares at his bare feet against the stone floor. Silence comes from the stone for a moment before Taako’s voice kicks back up.

“Who is this?” He sounds wary, ready to bolt.

“Oh you wouldn’t know me. But I know you. And I definitely know Angus here. Why don’t you say hello, Angus?”

His mouth is uncovered and Angus takes a few ragged breaths before wobbling out a cracked sounding “Hi Taako.”

“Ango, hon, where are you? Who is that?”

His mouth gets covered up again and he practically sobs into it. “Oh don’t worry so much. You’ll hear him soon enough.” Angus hates the way that’s phrased, hates what it implies. The sounds of things behind rustled in the box comes from below him.

“What the fuck do you want?”

“Oh, Taako. So short minded. Did you really think you could run away from all those people you killed? Your assistant may be in jail but you’re still free. How does that work out, I wonder? Justice is justice, after all.”

“What does this have to do with Angus?”

“You killed my daughter.” A hand grabs his, forcing the fingers to unclench. Something small and sharp is fitted under one of his nails and his eyes go wide as he struggles against the ropes. “Now, I have no plans on killing Angus. I’m a much better person than you. I just want you to feel even a fraction of what it feels like to lose your child. To leave them alone for just a second to see the traveling cook and come back to find her dying on the ground in a crowd of people and the murderer already gone.”

“Listen,” Taako says. Angus has never heard him this frazzled. “We can work something out that doesn’t involve him. You can do whatever you want to me. Just let him go.”

The hand is taken away from his mouth and he can’t even find it in himself to call for help, to do anything but choke over his own breaths.

“This is exactly what I want to do to you,” the man says, and then he hammers down at the thing under his nail.

\---

When the screaming starts Taako almost drops his stone. Instead he clutches at it tighter. No one around the table is saying anything, all shocked silent in their seats. Angus’s voice breaks and a sob rings out clear from his stone before the screaming hikes back up. Taako can’t breathe, can’t do anything but stare down at the useless rock in his hands like it’ll stop what’s happening.

He gathers his bearings enough to yell a choked off “ _Stop_ ” at the stone, and it does. He can hear Angus choking on air from wherever they are, trying to control whatever he’s feeling. There’s shuffling, a pained noise from his magic boy, and then it’s quiet again.

“I’ll be in touch, Taako. Don’t worry. You won’t be apart too long.”

The stone clicks off and he drops it onto the table. His hands are shaking and his vision is blurry and he maybe very much feels like throwing up.

“Taako,” comes hoarsely from across the table. He looks up. Lup stares at him, horrified, eyes damp. “Taako what the fuck just happened?”

Barry’s gripping at her hand, staring at the table. He’s mouthing words to himself but Taako can’t make them out. He looks helplessly to his right, to see if Kravitz is faring any better than the rest of them. Kravitz stares at the stone on the table, half phased into a skeleton. No one knows what to do. There’s no protocol for this. He stands, shoving himself away from the table.

“Krav,” he says gruffly. “We gotta go to Lucas’s.”

Kravitz takes a moment to compose himself, stitching his skin back together.

“You wanna come with?” He asks Lup and Barry. Barry looks more than a little wrecked and Lup’s face is slowly turning murderous. She nods before turning to Barry. She takes his face in her hands and he seems to come back to himself. He nods as well, turning towards Taako and standing.

“Alright,” he says, scrubbing under his eyes to get some sort of composure back before he has to go talk with the world’s worst nerd. “Let’s go get our boy back.”

Lucas is in his office when they rift in, which is a relief. They don’t have to spend time hunting him down. He’s eating dinner, reheated spaghetti by the looks of it, and he almost drops his fork.

"Jesus fantasy Christ,” he asks, eyes flicking between the four of them. “Why are you here?”

Taako goes up and slams a hand on his desk, starling him. “Where did Angus go today?”

Lucas’s eyebrows furrow. “I think he mentioned going into town to check on a book. Why? Is he not back? Did something happen?”

“Fuck,” Taako mumbles to himself. “Fuck! Alright. We split up and take the town then.”

Lup nods, rift already there, and Lucas stands.

“No no no. You don’t come in here like that and don’t explain things. What the hell happened?”

“We got a call,” Kravitz says. “Thought it was from Angus but instead it was from his kidnapper. There were some… unsettling things on the stone.”

Kravitz is remarkably put together right now, and Taako remembers it’s his job. He deals with this all the time.

“Oh gods.” Lucas looks like he might be sick to his stomach. “Should… should we call someone? The police? Isn’t that what you’re meant to do?”

“We’re reapers,” Lup says harshly. “If anyone can get it done it’s us.”

He nods and sits, eyes his desk blankly. “Keep me updated?” His voice is small.

“Yeah,” Barry says. “We’ll keep you updated.”

They step through the rift onto a side street. It’s late, not a lot of people out, and Taako stalks forward. “Alright, we split up and cover as many people as we can. Ask anyone and everyone. Capishe?”

He gets nods all around and heads off towards the market place of this town. There’s a couple shops still up, some stragglers getting last minute dinner supplies from the fresh food merchants.

He asks a lot of people before he gets anywhere. No one has anything good to say. There’s a lot of younger people with his description in this square during the day. None stood out.

“Did you see a thirteen year old boy today? Yay high, curly hair, glasses, really polite?”

“Oh!” the woman exclaims, turning away from packing up her booth. “Yes! Nice clothes? Called me ma’am?”

Yes,” Taako says, eyes lighting up. “Yes. Yes! When did you see him? What was he doing?”

“Well,” she says, and her face looks worried. Not a great sign. “He walked over to me all hunched over and I thought it was some dumb prank at first. But he told me he was hiding from someone who was following him and asked if he could sit behind the booth for a few minutes. I offered to call someone for him, to go and get someone to walk with him, but he refused. I didn’t catch sight of the person following him, though. Did… Did he make it home alright?”

Taako can feel his face fall. He presses his hands to his face and breathes out harshly. “When did you say you saw him?”

“Right before one, I think. I wasn’t keeping good track of time, but it was around that time.”

Hours ago. He could be anywhere then. This man could be a magic user, could have him trapped away. “Thank you,” he hears himself say before he walks away. She calls out after him but he doesn’t really hear her. A hand is pressed to his upper arm and he turns, finds her staring at him.

“Let me call someone for you,” she says gently. “It’s the least I can do.”

He hands her his stone and mumbles out Kravitz’s frequency.

“Taako?”

“Hello,” the woman says. “Is this someone who can pick him up? He was looking for a boy and I don’t think my information did any good. He seems a little shell shocked right now and I’d feel better if he had someone with him.”

“Yes,” Kravitz says, letting out a breath of relief. “Where are you?”

“The marketplace off Jasper street.”

Taako hears a ripping noise from around the corner and then Kravitz is jogging around it, staring at the two of them. The woman presses the stone back into his hands and squeezes his arm before going back to her booth.

“Taako?” Kravitz tips his chin up and Taako loses all control he had over the tears pressing behind his eyes. He presses his face into Kravitz’s shoulder, muffling his cries in the suit.

“She saw him _hours_ ago, Krav. He could be anywhere. We’ve got _nothing_.”

“Shh,” he says, wrapping an arm around him. “We’re getting him back. We are. I promise you.”

Lup and Barry find them like that, wrapped up in each other in the closing up market place.

“We didn’t get anything,” Barry says.

“I got a nice lady who helped him hide out before he left and got himself kidnapped because he wouldn’t accept any more help.”

“Oh geez,” Barry says. “Taako that’s… Fuck.”

“Yeah. Fuck.”

“I think we gotta tell the police,” Lup says, voice low. “I think we might have to do that.”

“Fuck that. We can do this,” Taako says, standing up straight and wiping at his face.

“Taako,” Barry says. “It’s probably for the best that people who do this for a living know about it at least.”

“Fine, fuck it, we let the police take over so they can do nothing while we still do everything. Great.”

“At least they’ll be looking out,” Kravitz says.

“I guess. Whatever. I’ll do whatever. Just don’t make me talk to them first.”

\---

Angus sits against the wall, head pressed into the stone. He cradles one hand in the other, trying not to touch anything with it. Two fingernails are gone. If he shifts wrong it sends pain up his arm, so he’s trying his best not to move. He’d slept some, a few uncomfortable hours plagued with pain in his hand, but he’s awake now, exhausted and trying not to attract his kidnapper’s attention. He has no plan, no grand scheme to escape and get home. Nothing. He’d finished the rest of the water bottle, trying to replenish what water he’d lost crying last night. He wants to go home. He wants to curl up on the couch next to Taako or Kravitz or Barry or Lup and sleep and never think about this again.

He presses against the cold stone and wishes as hard as he can that this is some horrible dream that he’ll wake up from.

The door creaks open and he closes his eyes.

“Asleep?” The man asks quietly. “Or pretending?”

He lays as limp as he can, leveling his breathing into something slow and steady.

“Pretending,” the man says decisively. He hears footsteps and opens his eyes, looking up at him. He has a knife in his hand. He sees Angus’s eyes on the blade and laughs.

“Oh don’t worry. This one heals itself.”

A hand reaches for him and he presses back. “No, no no no,” he mumbles, hunching up.

“Only a little more,” he says, hefting him up by his arm. Angus struggles against him, but he’s tired and hungry and the man points the knife out threateningly.

His hands get tied to the back of the chair again. The man seems to hem and haw over something before coming back around to the front.

“Should we include Taako in this one?”

Angus doesn’t say anything, just stares at their feet and tries not to cry already.

“I think you’re right. Just us for this one.”

He presses something on the knife and says something quietly to it and a humming comes from the device. Angus watches it slowly light up red hot and comes to the horrifying realization of what he meant by “heals itself.”

Angus squirms as far back in the chair as he can, trying to scoot away. The man grabs the chair and holds tightly. “It really is lucky that you’re human. I have no clue where the useless anatomy is on the other races.”

“Please,” he pleads uselessly. “Please don’t.”

The man pulls his shirt up and Angus struggles hard against the ropes holding his wrists together. If he can just get one free then he has leverage. He kicks a foot out, aiming for a tender spot, but his foot won’t reach.

He feels the burn before he feels the sharpness. It stabs into the fleshy part of his side and he chokes, squeezing his eyes shut. The smell and the sound and the burning drag of the blade couples into so much sensation that he can’t even make noise, his mouth hangs open uselessly as his throat closes up. It’s yanked out of him roughly and he emits a loud sobbing gasp. Tears run down his face as it’s pressed into him again. And again. And again.

One of the stabbings overlaps with a previous one and the pain doubles up so much that he leans over and vomits on the ground between his feet. He’s crying in earnest now, ugly noises pouring out of his mouth. The knife is pulled away, placed elsewhere, and a rough hand brushes over his cheek. The touch feels wrong and he tries to jerk away but there’s nowhere to go. He wipes the wetness off of his face.

“Hush, that’s enough now, don’t you think? We can save any more for later.”

His wrists are untied and he wraps his arms loosely around his middle, careful not to touch any of the wounds on his torso. He hunches over, not looking at the man. He hears a tongue click and then he walks away, picking up the knife and locking the door behind him.

Another water bottle gets rolled through the hatch. Angus pulls himself off of the chair, grabs the water bottle, and hunches back down in his corner. The cold stone is a relief against his skin, the burning feeling spreading through his whole body. He tries to sleep because then he won’t have to focus on the pain, but it’s a near useless endeavor.

Time carries on like that. He tries and fails to sleep, the door creaks open, he half heartedly struggles against being put in the chair, fails to not get put in the chair, gets something horrible done to him, curls back up in the corner, and rinse and repeat.

Taako’s on the stone for most of it and Angus feels so indescribably guilty. He knows he’ll blame himself for this, think it’s all his fault for something he never wanted to do. He tries not to scream, tries not to let on how bad it is, but he’s just barely become a teenager and he has no control over his reactions.

He passes out in the middle of getting a strip of skin from his stomach cut off with a much sharper knife. He comes to to Taako yelling at them over the stone, making sure he’s still alive. He coughs up blood when his ribs get hit. More fingernails get hammered off. His voice is raw and practically gone. He doesn’t sleep, can’t stop focusing on all the ways his body hurts. He has no clue how many days it’s been but it feels like an eternity.

Angus is hefted into the chair once more, but this time the stone is off. He doesn’t fight getting his wrists tied, doesn’t look up from the floor. His captor comes and sits in front of him, hammer gently swinging in his hands.

“You know,” the man says. “I was going to break a foot, just to make it difficult for you to get around here, but I think I’ve thought of something better.”

Angus says nothing. The man pulls himself up, pocketing the hammer. He goes to the door and Angus watches warily.

“Don’t worry, you won’t be alone in here for long.”

The door clicks shut and Angus closes his eyes. He has no idea what that’s supposed to mean, won’t be alone in here for long. A hysterical sob bubbles up from his chest, and it hurts to let it out, ribs protesting. He does it anyway, scrunching his eyes closed tighter and trying to block out everything around him.

\---

Taako can’t sleep. He hasn’t slept since they got that first call. He waits with baited breath for every new one. On one hand it’s good, because it tells him Angus is still kicking, but on the other, it just sounds worse and worse every time. He doesn’t leave his stone anywhere, keeps it on his person at all times, pouring over the list of the dead he’d gotten from the Glamour Springs police. There were a lot of kids there, lots of girls around Angus’s age. What he’s looking for are kids without parents, kids whose parents didn’t die there with them.

It hurts to look at this list. He knew there were kids there, but seeing their faces, reading their names, seeing their ages leaves him with an empty feeling.

His stone fizzes to life and Barry looks up from his spot next to him, also looking over the papers. Kravitz and Lup are out looking for any sign of Angus. They’d found scorching on the side of a tree in the forest road the other day, scuff marks in the dirt.

“Hello, Taako,” the man says. “How are we doing tonight?”

“Whatever you’re doing, don’t. Please.”

“Well,” the man says, amused. “I was going to tell you where it was you could find him, but if you don’t want that—”

“No!” Barry summons his scythe, pulling his own stone of farspeech out, ready to call Lup and Kravitz back. “Please, please tell me where he is.”

“You got so close to it in the town, you know. I even saw you there a few times, asking around.”

“Tell me,” he pleads, voice cracking.

“If you must know,” he sighs before reading off an address.

“I know where that is,” Barry says quietly next to him.

“Where in the house,” Taako asks.

“Isn’t the address enough? Must I give you all of the answer?”

“Don’t be more of a fucking asshole than you already have been.”

“In the back bedroom there’ll be a closet. In that closet is a door. No magic, just regular locks.”

“How can I trust you?”

“Can you afford not to?” He can hear the smile on his face and it’s sickening. “I haven’t lied to either of you once. That’s more than I can say for you. Be relieved that he’s alive at all, Taako.”

Barry makes the rift, calling Lup quietly to tell her where the address is.

“If you ever fucking show your face around him again I swear to the gods that I’ll—”

“What, you’ll kill me too? My daughter wasn’t enough for you?”

Taako bites his tongue. Barry motions towards the rift and he steps through.

“I shouldn’t be in touch anytime soon, Taako, if we ever talk again at all. But don’t worry, I’m very much done with Angus.”

Lup and Kravitz are already there, waiting for them. Taako shuts off his stone and shoves it roughly in his pocket.

“Should we get Merle?” Kravitz asks. “I don’t know what state he’ll be in, but it’s better safe than sorry, isn’t it?”

“I’ll get him,” Lup offers. “You three go get him out.”

She rips a hole in reality and disappears. Taako walks forward, wand at the ready, and kicks the door open. It swings easily, not fully latched closed. No lights are on and Taako flips the switch. The house lights up and he walks forward. He takes the corners cautiously but there’s no one there to stop them. The back bedroom is easy enough to find, and there’s no one in there either. Kravitz opens the closet door, looking inside before giving them a nod. Taako goes inside and finds the other door easily. There’s a hatch in the bottom, presumably to slide stuff into. It’s locked, but that won’t stop him.

He presses an ear to the door, just to see what he can hear, and comes back with a whole lot of nothing.

“Taako,” Barry says. “Be careful.”

“I’m not an idiot,” he hisses to him.

“I know, and I don’t mean that.” Barry scrubs at his face with his free hand. “I mean with whatever you see in there, be careful how you handle it.”

Taako wants to snap something back but he doesn’t. Barry’s right. He has no idea what Angus will look like, what exactly he’s gone through. Instead, he takes a deep breath and nods. Then he turns back around and casts knock.

The door opens easily, creaks heavily on its hinges. He walks in cautiously, wand out, and takes in his surroundings.

Angus sits in the middle of the room in a chair. His wrists are tied behind his back and his head is hanging low. He’s not moving but for the subtle shake in his shoulders. A quiet whimpering noise comes out of his mouth and he doesn’t look up.

“Angus?” Taako asks quietly. His head snaps up and his eyes lock onto Taako. There’s blood smeared under and around his mouth, some of it stained onto the shirt that he’s wearing, and his eyes have deep set bags underneath them.

“Taako?” He asks, voice hoarse and cracking. His eyes are watering, blinking rapidly.

He takes a step forward, and then another, and another until he’s in front of him. He sinks down onto his knees so he’s eye level with him, reaching a tentative hand out.

Kravitz and Barry come in behind him but Angus doesn’t look at them. He keeps staring at Taako as he starts to cry, biting at his already bloody lip. Kravitz pulls a knife from somewhere and cuts through the rope holding his wrists together. He reaches out towards Taako and he finally grabs him up in a gentle hug. He has no idea where the hurts are right now and doesn’t want to aggravate anything. He sobs into his shoulder, tiny body shaking in his arms.

“I’m sorry, bubeleh,” he says quietly. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

He squeezes him gently and gets met with a choked off noise of pain. He pulls back from the hug and Angus isn’t looking at him. He looks off to the side, pressing his lips together and wiping at his eyes.

“Ango, pumpkin, where’s it hurt?”

He doesn’t say anything, eyes darting around to the two others in the room. Taako gets the hint.

“Hey, can we get some privacy for a minute here?”

“But,” Kravitz tries to protest before Barry grabs his arm and pulls him out of the room. The door doesn’t shut all the way but it’s enough to give them the space they need.

“Alright, now tell me what hurts.”

“I don’t want you to get upset,” he wobbles out instead of telling him.

“I’m not upset with you,” he says, furrowing his brows. Where would he have gotten that from?

“No,” Angus says, and Taako notes that his fingers are curled up. “I don’t want you to be upset with yourself.”

“Angus—”

“Please,” he says, voice scratching. “It’s not your fault. It’s _not_ your fault. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I got got and couldn’t get out. I’m sorry.”

He devolves into a mess of tears and Taako grabs his face because that’s the only part of his body he can be sure isn’t super injured right now.

“Don’t say sorry. You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.” Angus sniffs and his face scrunches up in an attempt to not cry anymore. “I won’t be upset. I promise I won’t be upset if you tell me.”

He nods and wipes at his face. And then he uncurls his fingers.

More than half of his fingernails are gone and Taako sucks in a breath. The skin at the end of his fingers is red and raw looking, probably a little bit infected. He grabs his hands in his, squeezing at the palm comfortingly.

“That all?”

He shakes his head and pulls his hands back to lift up his shirt. Taako closes his eyes and breathes in deeply, hoping that when he opens his eyes it’ll be smooth, unmarred skin and that what he just saw was some sort of walking hallucination. He reopens his eyes and finds the same sight.

His ribs and stomach are bruised pretty bad, dark brown and greenish colors all over. There’s a strip of skin missing from his right side, and on his left there’s burn marks that he realizes are stab wounds upon closer inspection.

A harsh breath puffs out of him and Angus drops his shirt again, wrapping his arms around his middle.

“That’s it?”

He gets a nod in return, Angus isn’t looking at him again. He takes his face in his hands again and kisses his forehead.

“Okay. Okay. You’re gonna be fine, alright? We’re getting you out of here and Merle is gonna fix you up and then you’re gonna be home, okay?”

Angus closes his eyes and nods again, whispering out a very small, very scratchy, “okay.”

“Hey!” Taako calls out, pulling Angus off the chair and holding him close. The door opens and Kravitz pops his head through. “Is Merle here yet?”

“Yes. Him and Lup and Barry are waiting outside.”

“Do you wanna stay here and get healed or go home and get healed,” he asks Angus.

“Go home,” he mumbles against his shirt.

He hefts him up in his arms as carefully as he can, but he still gets a pained noise in response.

“Let’s go get the others and go home,” he says. Kravitz nods and follows closely behind him. The other three are waiting outside for them. Lup lets out a gasp when she sees Angus, and he curls up tighter in his arms as a response.

Barry rips a rift back to their house open in the dark street and Taako steps through it first, letting the inky blackness take them home.

\---

Angus sits on the couch as Merle looks him over before healing him, just so he can get a good idea of what he needs to do. Barry hands him a wet washcloth and he wipes at his face, thanking him quietly.

He feels a little frazzled around the edges, just sitting there and letting Merle look and poke and prod at him. And then he finally puts a glowing, healing hand on his middle and some of the pain ebbs away.

“Alright,” Merle says quietly, and he can see Taako perk up behind him. “Most of that should be healed up. The bruising on your ribs will take a little more time, but all those cuts should be good to go. The cracked rib should be back to just bruised too.”

He nods. “Thank you,” he says softly, drawing his knees up. Moving still hurts, the bruising on his ribs making sure of that. But he feels better. His fingers don’t hurt anymore, and his body feels less like it’s burning up.

“Don’t mention it,” Merle says gruffly, standing up. “You’ll wanna rest the ribs and take it easy for a while, but you should be good to go.”

He nods again and pushes himself farther into the couch. He doesn’t want to be seen by anyone right now. Merle turns to Taako and says something that Angus can’t hear, and he watches as Taako ears droop lower and lower.

“I’m going to take a shower,” he says, and he notes that his voice still feels scratchy. He doesn’t really get any acknowledgment from that other than Barry giving him a thumbs up, so he slips off the couch and grabs a towel, locking himself in the bathroom.

He turns the water on before turning the light off and slipping under the hot spray. He scrubs harshly at his hair, wincing as the movement jostles his ribs. He doesn’t know how much time he spent there but he feels disgusting.

Angus brushes the residual taste of blood out of his mouth after finishing everything else in the shower, and then he sits down and turns the hot water up a bit more. He sits in the dark with the hot water pounding over his back and closes his eyes, breathes.

He’s home and he’s fine. His body aches a little, but it hurt after the fight against the Hunger too. He rubs his hand down his stomach and feel rough bumps where it should be smooth and flat. His throat hurts and his eyes sting and he hiccups in his inhale when the pressure of holding his breath gets to be too much for his ribs.

It feels like he could sit there forever, head swimming in the heat of the steam surrounding him. But Angus doesn’t want anyone to have to worry more than they already have so he shakily stands up and shuts the water off.

He doesn’t turn the light back on, drying off in the dark and then wrapping the towel under his arms. He leaves his clothes in the hamper in the corner. The shirt will probably get thrown away, too grimy to deal with washing.

The lights are bright enough in the hallway to make him blink a few times to catch his bearings. The talking from the living room stops abruptly when he comes out, a few pairs of eyes popping around the corner. He gives them a wave and then shuts himself in his bedroom.

Angus gets dressed in a comfortable shirt and sweatpants and pulls on the slippers Kravitz had gotten him last Candlenights. They’re shaped like ravens and offer a comfortable layer of cushioning from his bare feet to the cold floor. He hesitates for a second and then pulls a big heavy sweater on overtop his shirt. The sleeves go down past his hands.

The floorboards creak a little as he walks out of his bedroom and back into the main room. Merle is gone, which is a little surprising. Angus thought he might stay for a little while longer. He goes past everyone and into the kitchen, pouring himself a glass of water. He goes and sits in his corner of the couch, curling up and sipping at the water. Everyone’s stopped talking again. He sighs.

“Can we… not do this?” His voice is still hoarse and he frowns.

“Do what?” Kravitz asks.

“Acting like I’m going to freak out if anyone says anything. I’m not. You can talk. I just want to sit here.”

Taako opens his mouth to say something but gets interrupted by Angus’s stomach growling. He winces and curls an arm over his middle. His mouth closes and he gives him a look.

“You want some food, pumpkin?”

“Soup?” He asks hopefully.

“It’s gonna be from the freezer,” Taako offers.

“That’s fine.”

Taako nods and then hesitates. He clearly doesn’t want to leave him there. Angus sighs again, and the breath catches in his throat. He twists his lips at that, hopping off the couch, holding his cup in both hands as he walks back to the kitchen.

He grabs a pot from the cupboard and puts it on the stove, turning the heat on. Taako comes into the kitchen.

“Hey, I thought I was making you soup.”

“You’re going to get all anxious about it if you leave me there even though everyone else is home so I figured I’d help out.”

Taako huffs and turns to the freezer. “I am _not_ going to get all anxious. Have you met me, Agnes? I’m Taako. From TV. Let me make you soup and you go chill on the couch.”

He does, shuffling back to the couch and curling up in his corner. He sips at his water dutifully, hoping that it’ll help get rid of the hoarseness that’s still there. Barry and Lup are chatting about something he can’t make out on the other side of the room and Kravitz is sitting on the other end of the couch.

“Are you feeling any better?”

“Mhm,” he says as he pulls the sweater over his knees. “The shower helped.”

“That’s good.”

“Did Merle leave? I thought he would stay longer.”

“Oh,” Kravitz says, shifting in his seat. “He figured, um, that you’d probably just want to be around the people that are normally here and not want any extras.”

That sounds a little bit like a lie, but Angus doesn’t have the energy to argue about it right now, so he fixes Kravitz with a stare before going back to drinking his water.

“Soup!” Taako says, coming into the room with a soup mug full of soup with one of the big spoons that he knows Angus likes. He sets the water down and reaches out his hands to take the soup from him. It’s warm and smell hearty, but it’s something a little lighter which is probably for the best. He may be hungry but it feels like his body will revolt anything more than plain.

Warm broth floods over his tongue as he takes a spoonful. It’s soothing on his throat, and with the first taste of food in however long he was there his stomach comes back to life, ravenous. He eats it faster, scooping up spoonfuls.

“Whoa now, chill out. Don’t make yourself sick, my dude.”

“Hungry,” he says between spoonfuls, and that gets the soup mug taken from him while he has the spoon in his mouth. He huffs and crosses his arms, narrowing his eyes at Taako, who narrows his right back.

“Eat slower,” he says, holding the soup out of reach. Angus rolls his eyes and nods. The soup is given back and he takes moderately slower bites. Taako accepts it and sits down on the floor in front of him.

“How long was I there?” He asks about halfway through the bowl, once his stomach stops screaming at him.

“Four days,” Taako says.

Four days. He was only there four days. Not even a week. He feels… he doesn’t actually know how that makes him feel. His fingers go numb and he rests the spoon in the mug. Four days isn’t a lot of days. He thought he’d been there for longer. It felt like he was there for longer.

“Angus?”

Kravitz nudges his shoulder and he jumps a little, picking the spoon back up just to do something.

“What’s wrong with my voice?” He asks, because the scratchiness hasn’t gone away even with the warmth of the soup.

He can feel the air in the room get tense and he prepares himself for something very uncomfortable. Taako looks like he’s trying to figure out what to say, and Kravitz isn’t doing much better.

“Merle says it’s possible you have permanent vocal damage,” Barry says, and Angus’s eyes flick over to him. “It might go away, but it also might not. It’s kinda up in the air in the worst kind of way right now.”

Angus takes a second to mull that over. “Would I lose my voice completely or would it just be scratchy like this forever?”

“You wouldn’t lose it, not unless you did something incredibly bad to your vocal chords in the future. In all likelihood you’ll probably have a pretty normal voice with some off days where it gets hoarse like now. But, it could also just be scratchy for the rest of your life.”

Angus takes another bite of his soup even though he’s lost his appetite. He sets the mug on the table next to him. That’s some information he didn’t expect to get. His ears feel a little ringy but he ignores that, tries not to focus too hard on the way his breaths catch is his throat awkwardly.

“Thank you,” he says to Barry, who looks confused. “For not lying.”

“It’s your body,” Lup says from next to him. “We’re not gonna lie to you about it.”

He nods and wraps his arms around his knees. Taako takes the mug into the kitchen and he can hear him rinse it out.

“I think I’m going to go to bed,” he says, uncovering his knees.

“Okay,” Kravitz says. “We’re here if you need anything, alright? Don’t hesitate to come get one of us.”

Angus wants to say he’s not a baby and that he doesn’t need anything, but also the thought of him being alone in his room is terrifying, so he just nods instead.

He keeps his door partially open like he always does, cracked a bit so that some of the light from the hallway seeps in. He slips the slippers off and climbs into his bed. Angus hasn’t been home in a while, but the sheets are fresh as he sinks into them. Everything feels soft in an almost too much way and it’s a little terrifying.

He forces himself to lie still so he doesn’t aggravate his ribs any more. Lying on his back, he stares up at the shadowy dark ceiling. He doesn’t know how long he lies there, but he knows it feels like he can’t move. His head swims and his breathing gets choppy and when he finally finds it in him to sit up, the lights in the rest of the house are out.

The slippers find their way to his feet again and he shuffles into the hallway. The relief that his door opens makes him incredibly uncomfortable. Taako and Kravitz’s room is at the end of the hall. The dark feels endless, and his steps feel like he’s walking through jello.

“Angus?”

Lup is standing in her doorway, staring at him. Barry’s looking out from his spot on his bed. Angus looks at her blankly.

“I—,” he starts and stops. He’s not sure why words are so hard right now.

“You trying to get to Taako’s?”

He nods. She got it. He was hoping she’d get it.

“Be right back, babe,” she calls to Barry behind her. Her hand wraps onto his shoulder, soft, gentle, and he relaxes a bit. Lup steers them down the hall and knocks on the door.

Taako answers, hair pulled up in a messy bun. “Hey.”

“Little man wants to sleep with you two tonight, I think. Looked a little lost in the hallway.”

“Only if you’re okay with it,” Angus rushes out, finally finding his voice. “You don’t have to. I… I can just—”

“Come get some sleep, pumpkin,” Taako says, opening the door wider. Kravitz is already asleep from the looks of it. Angus wonders how long he was lying there awake, unable to get up.

“Okay,” he says small-ly.

“Good night, mango,” Lup says, squeezing his shoulders before turning back to her room. The darkness behind them looks uninviting and he turns his head back to Taako. He walks in cautiously, careful not to make so much noise that Kravitz wakes up. He can see how tired all of them are. It’s been a very long four days for everyone.

Taako lets him get into bed first, slipping off his slippers again and curling up in the middle of the bed. Taako pulls the covers over both of them, tentatively wrapping an arm over him as well.

Angus falls asleep easy after that.

\---

To say the kid has been jumpy is an understatement, Taako thinks. He constantly covers up his hands, barely talks, and loses focus so often it’s starting to make Taako uncomfortable. And when someone does bring him back into the real world, he jumps, ever so slightly.

Angus has always been a little bit skittish, but not like this.

Taako knows why, obviously. Everyone knows why. It’s been a few days, but he doesn’t really seem to be getting much better. Not that he’d expect him to be. The kid got tortured for four days straight over Taako’s forever ass kicking mistake. He told him not to blame himself, but how can he not? He killed that girl, he made that man want revenge so badly he took it out on a thirteen year old kid.

“I’m running to the bookstore,” he says five days after he’s home. He’s got that massive sweater that he barely take off on, sleeves covering up his fingers.

“You’re what?” Taako says, thinking he’s misheard him.

“Running to the bookstore. The book I was looking for last week should be in.”

“Uh huh. You’re running to the bookstore. By yourself. And you think that’s fine?”

Angus gives him a look. “I’m not five. You’ve never not let me go wherever I wanted.”

“Yeah, but that was before—”

“Before what?” Taako needs to choose his words very carefully it seems. Angus is getting snippy with him, which is fine, but he doesn’t want to make it worse. “It wasn’t this town. And it was four days. It was only four days. I’m fine.”

“Only- _only_ four days? Are we calling you getting kidnapped for any amount of time and only situation? You think this works in levels, kid? Cause it doesn’t. That’s not how this works.”

“I’m fine! It’s not even—,” he cuts himself off and groans. “I need to get out of the house.”

“And you think I’m just gonna let you go?” He wishes that anyone else were home with him. The Raven Queen had been lenient during their searching time, but now that Angus is found she’s called them back in.

“You are,” Angus says, voice rising in frustration. “Because I feel more trapped in here than I did there.”

Angus doesn’t lie often. He prefers honesty above all, going so far to make Merle teach him Zone of Truth. When he does lie, it’s almost always about his own emotions, things he doesn’t want to admit to himself, things that are confusing to him and he doesn’t want to burden other people with.

This lie stings.

Taako watches as Angus realizes what he’s said, eyes going wide, mouth opening to stammer out an apology.

“Fine,” Taako cuts him off before he can even start. “If you think you’re good to go out and about by yourself, be my guest. If you would be so kind as to pick up some parsley while you’re out, I would be ultra appreciative.”

Angus stands there for a moment, slack jawed. Taako’s a little worried about how long it’s taking him to respond, actually, and then he straightens up, closes his mouth, sets his face in a look of indifference.

“Sure,” he says, voice rougher than it usually is now. “I’ll grab some parsley.”

He walks out then, arms wrapped around his middle like he can hold everything in. Taako scrubs at his face and curses himself. He shouldn’t have let him leave. Now he’ll wait anxiously for any news until he comes back and then act like he wasn’t terrified the whole time.

Taako busies himself with baking a batch of cranberry bread. The repetitive chopping of the cranberries sets his mind a little bit at ease.

Then his stone lights up.

They’d given Angus the spare stone they keep at home just until they can get him a proper replacement. It’s better for him to be able to contact everyone than just have him be at the whim of whoever’s home.

“Angus?” He says, heart rising into his throat.

“Taako,” he gasps out. “Taako I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I thought I- I thought I saw him but I can’t—,” he cuts himself off with a shaky inhale.

“Where are you, are you okay?”

“I don’t _know_ , I… I think I’m on Bilckreek Avenue? M-maybe. I ran away, I thought it was him but I don’t think it was and I ran and now I… I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

He’s hyperventilating into the stone, which isn’t great, but he’s coherent enough to tell him what’s wrong, which is better. Taako sets out, pulling on his shoes faster than he ever has and speeding down the streets. “Tell me what things look like around you. Deep breaths.”

“There’s a-a big purple house, and the hedges are trimmed really short. And, um, I’m up against a really old brick building. It feels like it’s buzzing. Everything feels like it’s buzzing.”

He’s right about being on Bilcreek. That house is pretty monumental. He turns down the back way shortcut he’d found to get down in that area.

“Hey, guess what.”

“Wh… What?”

“I’m definitely almost there. You got like two minutes at most to wait, okay?”

“Mhm,” he rattles out shakily. His voice sounds really hoarse right now, straining and breathy.

“Did you make it to the bookstore?” He asks, trying to come up with something casual to talk about until he gets there.

“Mhm,” another gasping breath. “I got the book.”

“Name it for me again?”

“Ca-caleb Cleveland and the Underwater City.”

“Oh, that sounds like a stumper. What’s the mystery again?”

“How it got underwater. How the people are alive when there’s no discernable air bubbles.”

“Gotcha.” He turns down the last street he needs to and spots him. “Hey, look to your left.”

He watches Angus turn his head and loosen his grip on the stone. He’s got two bags next to him. Taako didn’t even actually need parsley, but now he has it, he guesses.

“You alright?” He asks, crouching down in front of him.

Angus shakes his head vigorously and covers his face with his sweater hands. His shoulders are shaking and his breath hitches a few times.

“You wanna get home before we have the breakdown?”

He nods, still hiding his face. Taako grabs him by the arm and pull him up, which gets him a pretty hefty flinch and then muffled apologies.

“You’re alright, little man.” He scoops up the bags in his hands and gently nudges him forward. “Let’s get home.

The walk home is uneventful but for the occasional shiver that runs through Angus. The bags rustle in his hands as he walks right beside him, pace slowed down.

When the door to their house closes behind them, Angus bursts into tears. Taako drops the bags quickly and turns towards him, hands fluttering out, unsure of what to do.

“I’m so-orry,” he whines out. “I didn’t mean it, I didn’t _mean it_. I know you’re all trying really hard and I’m _awful_ , it was only four days I shouldn’t feel _bad_ like this. I’m mad all the time and that was so mean, it was mean and I didn’t mean it and then I thought I saw him on the street and I thought the last conversation we’d ever have would be me being mean and nasty to you and you don’t deserve it I’m sorry.”

His voice is cracking all over the place and his sinks onto the floor, sobbing into the sleeves of the sweater. Taako sits down next to him, finally risking wrapping his arms around him. He switches to crying into Taako’s shoulder.

“Fuck, kid, you’re not awful. And four days is a lot of days to deal with what you dealt with. Hell, one day would have been too many days to deal with that. Is that what you’ve been thinking? That you’re not allowed to feel your fucked up feelings because it was four days?”

He gets a nod in response and Taako lets out a harsh sigh. “Pumpkin, that’s not how this works. You don’t get to choose what your brain gets messed up over.”

“I wanna be okay so you’ll stop blaming yourself.”

Fuck. Taako squeezes him tight and then holds him out by his shoulders. He looks at him with red, watery eyes.

“You gotta stop that, okay? What you need to do right now is focus on how you’re feeling and why you’re feeling that way. I don’t need you looking out for my emotions. Whether you think so or not, it’s at least a little bit my fault. Deffo not all. Pretty much all of it goes to that asshole dude that the police are for sure still looking for.”

“But—”

“No buts on this one, bubeleh. I’m an adult. You gotta let Taako deal with Taako’s emotions. But I’m not putting that on you. One, because you’re a kid and you shouldn’t have to get burdened with some adult’s problems. And two because you’re hurting really bad right now, and it’s my job to help you with that. Not the other way around.”

“Okay,” he says, voice cracking. He wipes at his face with his sleeves.

“Hey,” Taako says, grabbing his covered up hands in his. “Don’t think you gotta cover up your fingers just for our sakes.”

“I don’t want to look at them,” he says quietly. “I don’t want to look at any of it.”

“Also fine,” Taako says pretty much immediately. “You take things at whatever pace you want.”

It’s quiet for a moment, and then Taako looks across the room into the kitchen to see the remaining cranberries.

“You wanna help me finish up this cranberry bread?”

Angus perks up, nodding, and Taako pulls them both up off the floor.

“Alright, you get to work zesting that orange.”

Angus’s logic for allowing himself to bake and roll his sleeves up is that he can’t see his fingernails when he’s stirring or holding stuff tightly, and Taako’s not going to contradict him. The cranberry bread comes out a little crispy on the body, but Angus eats it happily anyway.

\---

About a month after everything’s over and done with, Angus is still feeling everything a lot and too much. They’d considered sending him to visit with a therapist, but he’d worked himself up into a panic attack over sharing any of that information with a stranger and burdening them with it. Everyone insists he wouldn’t be a burden, that that’s their literal job, but Angus can’t bring himself to think about it.

He doesn’t let himself walk around barefoot if he can help it, shoes or slippers on at all times. He keeps his sleeves low until Kravitz brings him home a pair of soft gray gloves. They fit his hands perfectly, and the light pressure on his hands keeps him steadied. He still wears his big heavy sweater around, but he keeps the sleeves at a more manageable length, gloves covering up everything he doesn’t want others or himself to see.

“Hey,” Barry says one weekend day. It’s him, Taako, and Angus home today, Lup and Kravitz out on reaper duty. “How would you feel about visiting Magnus?”

“Okay, I guess.” He shrugs. If it’s for actual visiting, then he’s very okay with it. If it’s about making Angus talk things over with a more removed person, then he’s not. “Only if I don’t have to talk about anything.”

“Oh don’t worry about that. Maggie’s not gonna ask you any questions about all that unless you ask him to.” Taako sips his tea without looking up. “Besides. You’ve got a surprise waiting for you there.”

Angus perks up at that. “A surprise? What is it?”

“That’s why it’s called a surprise,” Barry says, shooting Taako a look. “You’re not supposed to know about it.”

“Oh come on, Angus hates getting things sprung on him out of nowhere. He doesn’t even know what it is yet. He just knows there’s something.”

Barry grumbles something about keeping promises and not telling people surprises before they should know about them. Angus gives a small laugh.

His voice is still scratchy. His throat doesn’t hurt, his voice just sounds different still. Angus is beginning to suspect it’ll stay like that for a while.

“We can go to Magnus’s/ I’m okay with that.”

“Cool. He should be expecting us in like two hours.”

It’s an antsy two hours. Angus has no idea what this surprise could be. A wood carving, maybe? A job offer to help with the dogs? He’s heading back to school sometime soon so if it’s that he won’t be able to accept.

He’s practically bouncing in his seat when Barry finally makes the rift. Angus snatches up his bag from its place near him on the floor and drags Taako off of the couch and into a standing position, pulling him through the rift and into Magnus’s kitchen.

The dogs immediately start barking, shocked at the arrival of three new people into their space.

“Hey! Quiet down everyone.” Magnus does some shushing motions with his hands and turns towards them. “You couldn’t have used the front door?”

“More direct,” Barry shrugs, disappearing his scythe.

“You’ve got me there,” Magnus says. He turns to Angus. “Hey little man, how’re you feeling?”

Taako hisses something under his breath in elvish that Magnus wrinkles his nose at. They’ve told him all about it then, Angus assumes.

“Better,” he says truthfully. “Getting back up to one hundred percent.”

Angus raids the fridge for the bottle of juice he knows will be in there. Magnus always stocks up on juice when he knows Angus is coming over, usually has a few extra just incase he pops in unannounced.

They all chat about random life things, Angus piping up when he feels like it. No one pushes him to talk. It’s nice, being out of the house, being with another part of his family.

Lup pops in not long later and Angus throws her one of the juices. She likes them just as much as he does. “Krav’s finishing up some paperwork, he should be by soon. Y’all done the thing yet?”

She means the surprise, he knows she does. Barry groans and rubs at his face. “It’s a _surprise_. Why can no one here just let things be surprises?”

“Whoops,” she says, popping the top off of the juice. “No one told me you guys hadn’t done the thing yet. You gotta let me know.”

“What is the surprise, Miss Lup?”

“Nah ah. You’re not getting that out of me. I’ve got my mouth zipped shut.”

He turns his eyes to Magnus, giving him his best wide eyed innocent look. Magnus is horrible at keeping surprise. He’s a little surprised he’d lasted this long.

“Bathroom,” Magnus says to avoid spilling the details.

“Come on,” Taako nudges him. “Let’s wait ‘til Krav gets here. It’ll be more fun that way.”

He huffs and agrees. His juice gets emptier and emptier as he waits, adding limited commentary. If he’s being honest with himself, he feels a little drained. He’s put a lot of energy into being ready for the surprise, and the waiting is taking a lot out of him. Taako seems to notice him flagging because he mumbles things into his stone of farspeech to who Angus can only guess is Kravitz, asking him to hurry it up a little bit.

He isn’t really talking by the time Kravitz gets there, saving what emotional energy he has left for the surprise thing. He’s resting his head on the empty bottle of juice when he hears the rip, sitting up straight again.

“Sorry I’m so late, there was more paperwork than I thought there would be. Mistake in reading the rules.”

“Mags let’s get this thing rolling!” Taako says, nudging Angus to get him up. He stands, thrumming with energy again. Taako covers his eyes and glasses with his hands and he lets out a little yelp, putting one gloved hand up to double check it’s him.

“Still me, bubeleh. Just gotta make sure you don’t spot it before it’s time.”

He’s led forward, outside and carefully down the steps and into the front lawn. He can hear something moving around, unsure if it’s a person or one of the dogs.

Taako stops them, but he keeps his hands over his eyes.

“You ready?”

“Yes!” He answers enthusiastically.

“Alright, three, two, one.” Taako pulls his hands away and Angus blinks a few times to get used to the sun.

Across from him is Magnus and young dog. Angus thinks it might be a border collie if he’s remembering correctly.

“What?” He turns to Taako, questioning. “I don’t understand.”

“Well, you’re going back to school sometime soon, and none of us are gonna be just one room away anymore. Sure, those three have direct paths to you at any given time, but it’s not exactly feasible. We were talking to Mags about it and he made the suggestion.”

“She just finished up her training so I thought it might work out pretty perfect.”

Angus looks at the dog again, wracking his brain for some kind of explanation. One pops into his head after a few seconds.

“You got me a service dog?”

“Eyup,” Taako says, and he can tell that he’s nervous about it. “You get to name her too.”

Angus crouches down and holds out a hand. Magnus lets go of the leash and steps aside. The dog comes up slowly, gently noses at his gloved hand before pressing her mouth to his fingers.

“Wha- oh.” He’s quiet. The others have moved away, giving him space. He gingerly takes off one glove, fingernails faced away from him and the others, and offers his hand up again.

She rubs her head against his hand, licking at it. Angus thinks he might be crying a little. He presses his forehead to hers and she sits there, lets him. His hands dig into her fur, so soft against his bare hand, and he lets out a watery little giggle.

“I’m gonna name you Basil.”

“ _Basil?_ ” he hears Taako badly whisper. “He’s naming his dog after an _herb_?”

“Shut up and let him be cute,” Lup says, swatting at him.

Basil licks at his face, removing the few tears from his face and he laughs again. She huffs gently at him, joining in on the laughter, and he wraps his arms around her.

“Thank you,” he says to the five people watching him. “I know… I’m not really easy to deal with right now but thank you.”

“Angus you can be as hard to deal with as you want and we’re still gonna love you,” Magnus says. “We thought maybe she’d be the right fit, and I’m really glad she is.”

“She feels really good,” he says and then scrunches his face up. “Like, I don’t know. She _feels_ good. Do you know?”

“Yeah buddy, we know.”

“What, um,” he scoots back a bit and she sits right next to him. He smiles a little. “What do I need to do to take care of her?”

“We can deal with that later. Right now you look like you’re ready to lock yourself in your room and never talk to anyone ever again.”

He feels that way too. Basil rests her head on his legs, looking up at him. He puts the glove back on his hand and rests in on her head. “I uh, yeah. I feel kinda drained right now.”

“You get your energy back and we’ll talk about it, cool?” Taako’s taking the lead on this. “Mags, it’s been fun, thank you for my boy’s new best friend, but I’ve got a detective to re-energize.”

Magnus pulls Taako into a big hug before he lets him go. He doesn’t offer one to Angus, which he’s relieved about. He’s not really up for person touching.

Basil does surprisingly well in the rift. She doesn’t get as freaked out as he thought she would, but she does stick very close to his side. He goes pretty much immediately to his room, Basil following behind dutifully. He sits on his bed with his back pressed against the pillows and Basil’s head on his lap, soft warm breaths puffing out against his hands.

He dozes for a few hours, not quite asleep but definitely not all the way awake. He wakes up all the way to the smell of dinner, some sort of casserole bake he thinks. Angus considers going out there, talking to people again. None of them will get offended if he takes his dinner to his room to get away from too much stimulation, but he doesn’t think he needs to.

He maybe slips Basil a piece of meat from his plate while Barry and Kravitz explain what exactly she needs in a caretaker. Daily exercise, brain stimulation, and a good healthy diet. Those are things he can do, especially at school. He can fit it into a schedule and that’ll be good for both him and her. He gets outside more and she gets a regimen that’s easy to follow and simple to change.

Taako sits next to the two of them after dinner on the couch, lounging in close. “How you feeling bubeleh? Little more up for people contact?”

“Mhm,” he mumbles as an affirmative. Taako wraps his arm around his shoulder and squeezes. Basil lifts her head briefly at this but deems the interaction fine enough to go back to laying down.

“I know today was a lot on you, lots of getting built up and then waiting forever. But was it all okay?”

“Better than. I love her. She feels good. I don’t know what that means but I _know_. I… I wanted to get upset, that you would think I need her. But I think you’re right. I want to go back to school and I can’t go back alone like this.”

“I know, pumpkin. I got worried for a second there that you were gonna reject the shit out of the whole deal.”

“I was gonna, but she was cute.”

“The folly of man,” Taako snorts. Angus gives a small smile, big emotions escaping him right now.

“Things are getting better though, yeah?” Taako’s voice is quiet, too quiet for the others to hear.

“Yeah. Definitely slowly, but better.”

“Good.” Taako squeezes his arm again. “I’m glad to hear it.”

He won’t admit he falls asleep with the warmth of his dog on his legs and the comforting feeling of Taako’s arm around him, but he definitely does. He gets carried to bed, and he wakes up halfway to hug Kravitz before he leaves. The door gets shut three quarters of the way, letting in a little of the light from the hall. Basil rests at his feet, head on his legs. He sleeps comfortably in his bed for the first full night since he got back.

**Author's Note:**

> uh  
> well  
> i dont really have a lot to say for this one other than i got the idea months ago and never put it into play until now  
> part of this was real hard to write, and then the rest went pretty smoothly. I did a hit on the boy but i tried my best to fix it.


End file.
